OUR VIEW: Let the market decide on guns

Monday

Mar 5, 2018 at 6:07 PMMar 5, 2018 at 6:07 PM

We often hear the phrase “let the market decide” attached to particular issues and situations. We’ll be interested in seeing how that plays out when attached to an issue that currently is sucking much of the oxygen out of the news cycle both in print and online — guns.

It’s not like that issue hasn’t been percolating way past the boiling point to full-out solar intensity for a while. However, the Valentine’s Day calamity at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which a former student armed with a rifle killed 17 people, has ramped the debate up to new levels. It also has produced action in the commercial realm, even as state and national legislators, government officials and partisans continue to scream their vendettas at each other.

In the last week, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart and Kroger (speaking for its Fred Meyer subsidiary) announced they would stop selling guns or ammunition to anyone younger than 21. (That already is the age limit under federal law to buy handguns or handgun ammo; the limit is 18 for rifles or shotguns and long gun ammo.)

Dick’s Sporting Goods also said it would stop selling military-style semi-automatic rifles, like the Florida shooter used, or high-capacity magazines to anyone.

More than a dozen other companies — including some major auto rental agencies — have dropped programs to give discounts to members of the National Rifle Association, the most high-profile and vehement opponent of increased gun regulations.

Also, underwriter Chubb Insurance and broker Lockton Affinity have discontinued their involvement with the NRA’s Carry Guard program, which insures its members against liability and legal fees should they shoot someone in self-defense.

Gun rights supporters are livid and vow boycotts of their own, and blame (insert the pejorative de jour for those seeking to deny them their God-ordained, God-bestowed right to bear whatever firepower they desire) for pressuring companies to do this.

They’re getting backup from legislatures in conservative states. Georgia stripped $50 million in jet fuel tax exemptions from Atlanta-based Delta over its decision to drop discounts for NRA members. Florida is poised to do the same and to rebid its state rental car contract with Enterprise Rent-A-Car after Enterprise dropped its NRA discounts.

We also expect lawsuits from people ages 18 to 20 who present themselves at a Dick’s Sporting Goods, Walmart or Fred Meyer sporting goods counter seeking to buy a gun, and are denied.

We expect them to fail, because federal law says vendors MAY sell long guns and ammo to people under 21. It’s impossible to predict how every judge will rule, but we see nothing in the law that compels anyone, on pain of civil or criminal punishment or financial penalties, to sell a gun to someone.

As for the actual or threatened boycotts, we say to both sides — those who want stronger gun regulations and those in the “from my cold, dead fingers” brigade — have at it. Really let the market decide instead of just saying those words without meaning them.

See who gets punished and who gets rewarded.

See whose sales and stock prices go up, and whose go down. (Sadly, more people vote with their wallets than with ballots these days.)

See if governmental arm-twisting as in Florida and Georgia produces results, or if companies respond by packing up their toys and moving elsewhere. (Delta has gotten a lot of invitations.)

See who wins the social media battles. (Warning: Kids and millennials are much more familiar with that landscape than their elders.)

Georgia’s lieutenant governor said of the situation with Delta, “Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back.”

However, corporations generally don’t possess that level of partisanship, despite what people on the extremes might think. Their focus is on maximizing money for themselves and their stockholders — period — and that motivation, not any passionate belief in causes, will drive their actions.

You want to know where this will end up, if there will be any changes? Follow the cash, not legislative machinations or the pronouncements of pundits. The cash has more clout.

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